Israel’s Health Minister tests positive for coronavirus, PM Netanyahu re-enters quarantine

Jerusalem, April 2

Israel’s Health Minister Yaakov Litzman has tested positive for COVID-19, forcing all top leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat, to go into quarantine, officials said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Netanyahu had earlier gone into seven-day self-isolation after a close aide was found to have contracted the deadly virus, but he has so far tested negative. His quarantine had ended Wednesday night.

Litzman and his wife, who also has contracted the virus, are in isolation, feeling well and are being treated, the health ministry said in a statement, adding that it will request all those who came in contact with the minister in the past two weeks to also do the same.

“The team of advisers, assistants and secretarial staff in the minister’s office will continue to work from home and will maintain constant telephone communication as needed with the minister, who is continuing to fully manage this event from his home,” the ministry said.

He has “light coronavirus symptoms after contracting the disease from an as yet unidentified source”, a Health Ministry official told Channel 12 news.

“His condition at this time is mild. He is not asymptomatic, there are some symptoms, but no more than that,” Dr Itamar Grotto, deputy director-general of the ministry, told the Channel.

Litzman will be “able to keep working while sick”, Grotto said.

The ministry is investigating from whom Litzman contracted the disease and is informing people who have been in contact with the minister to go into quarantine, including the director-general of the health ministry, Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, the head of Mossad and a number of other senior officials, he stressed.

Ha’aretz Online in its regular update said that both, Mossad Chief Cohen and NSA Shabbat, will be quarantined.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Aviv Kochavi, along with two of his senior commanders, went into isolation on Tuesday after a senior commander they came in contact with recently was tested positive for coronavirus.

Asked if Litzman could have contracted the disease from another senior government official, Grotto did not rule it out but also felt that it may have come from someone within the minister’s ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem, which has been particularly hit by COVID-19.

“There’s a high rate of the illness in the Haredi (Ultra-orthodox) community, so it’s reasonable to think that it happened there,” the official told the Channel.

The community leaders had earlier ignored restrictions over assembly as mandated by the government but have started to comply in view of the large number of cases in the community. 

Death toll due to coronavirus in Israel reached 31 on Thursday. The virus has infected 6,211 Israelis. One Israeli tourist died in Italy.

So far 241 have recovered after having tested positive. — PTI